HN user
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Slowly but surely:
- A learning tool in Python for Arrays and Algorithms
- A prototype agent-based configuration management system in Perl
- Trying to reinstall Arch Linux on a laptop the second time around (lost my install notes :D)
Mostly doing all of it for learning purposes.
Mostly organizing my dotfiles across Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD, however, I have really fallen for Ansible. I discovered at work awhile back, but was able to grok how to make and run a playbook, and I've been hooked since. It also finally allowed me to click the difference between Imperative and Declarative programming!
1) Learn AWK deeply, in which I will meticulously go through a copy of the original 1988 book.
2) Get better at Git.
3) Study and pass the RHCSA.
4) Get better at troubleshooting Linux servers. I can actually feel my skills improving when I can find the actual root cause of an issue, and not just a symptom that is irrelevant. (Thanks, sadservers!)
As someone who has spent their fair share of days in Vancouver, it blows my mind during some wet early mornings, that this city was where cyberpunk's cradle could be considered, where Gibson wrote Neuromancer. The rain, the grit, the grey, all shared across time and space and pages, and in between each of them, glimpses of the future. It's something about the genre that delights my sense of wonder, of who we as a species have come from and where we're going.
Spider - The Video Game [1] - a little PS1 platformer that had you playing as a cybernetically enhanced spider that could replace its limbs with various weapons, as it tried to save its creator. Its 90's charm, old-school cinematics and it being the first time seeing what could be called "nanotechnology" still blew my mind as a kid. I still go back sometimes and listen to its 'Level Select' theme. [2]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider:_The_Video_Game
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tzn-eNeq6w&pp=ygUoc3BpZGVyIHR...
As someone who was also recently taught this, it's amazing. Props to the GNU Readline library [1] as well as Tmux as they are certified game-changers for the occasional context swap.
Seconding Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," for its prescience, and I would also recommend Alfie Bown's "Candy Crush and Capitalism," as it makes a connection to how our notions of distracting ourselves acts as a way to emphasize the importance of our work, whatever it may be.
And Marshall Kirk McKusick wrote the latter, "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System"
On the one hand, more power to helping people get free information, but my only concern would be the quality. Say, for example, I want to learn Perl. Should I take the "Perl Programming" Wikibook, or a PDF copy of "Programming Perl, 4th Edition"?
The guidelines state "What good hackers find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups " If a Wikipedia page about a cinder cone volcano[0] can be posted, then this can too.
With a two-week vacation coming up, I am greatly looking forward to jump into this for the first time! Any tips for someone on their first go-around? (I've already got 'Be Patient' memorized)
That's entirely plausible. The next No Starch published book I read may also be terrible. But, I try to recommend what I can (that I've read) and allow readers (present and future) to make their own judgements.
Best case scenario, you've found a new resource. Worse case scenario, you learn what works for you.
For those without time, a quick glance at the channel appears to be about setting up your workspace/work environment. Looks at keyboards, iPad accessories and suggestions of overall improvements to the workspace. Thanks OP!
I mean, so far, its helped make things a bit easier for me to understand. I've also read "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" by Al Sweigart, which as someone with a non-CS background, I found very helpful, even when going back as a reference.
'The Systems Bible, 3rd Edition, by John Gall as a light introduction to Systems Theory as well as 'How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know, 3rd Edition' to brush up on my Linux. "Computer Organization and Design, 5th Edition" after those two.
On the fiction front, I just finished "Queen City Jazz", by Kathleen Ann Goonan, and I've got "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez queued up as well.
An Atari Portfolio from 1989. Eats 6 AA Batteries like candy. (If it seems familiar, it's what John Connor uses to hack an ATM in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day!"
While Michel Foucault sometimes gets a bad rep, he does actually talk about this in length in his book "Discipline and Punish (1975)" [0], in which the prison ends up becoming the Blueprint for other spaces such as the school, the barracks, the hospital and the factory/workplace. While dense, I would still recommend the text.
Working on a programming language competency scale for myself. The idea is to give one's self confidence at using a specific language. Everyone learns programming differently obviously, but as someone who's self-taught, it might be useful for others.
I think a good program, is like a good piece of art. You never really finish. You just satisfy the nagging feeling of incompleteness until you have exactly what you wanted (or hoped). And even if you don't finish, you've still technically finished your research into it.
7/10, so a pass. But as others have pointed out, everything in the photographs (from lighting to the angle of the subject) tells nothing about the subject. Unless you've seen pictures before, you wouldn't know, and even then you wouldn't know. People don't matter. Your perception of them DOES matter and that can change from things such as a single photograph.
While I've used Git a bit, and appreciate for what it is, I will admit that it's syntax is what makes it a bit difficult. If the Git commands had kept to a single metaphor, then I think that would have helped tremendously. Even now, I'm still trying to figure out the best metaphor for using Git and it's commands. So far the closest I have is a tree metaphor as follows:
Git init = tree planted
Git add and Git merge = trunk grows
Git branch = branch grows
Git merge = branch intersects
And so on. But even this falls apart once I get to Git diff and Git checkout.
I was going to suggest the :CueCat [0], but as I just realized, scanning QR codes with one's phone is quite trivial.
The fact that you recognize that you've got a runaway daemon is good. Now you just need to recognize when it's eating too much memory and taking too many processes. (I realize that how I've described might be a bit much, but if you've thought yourself into this conundrum, then perhaps you can think your way out!)
As someone interested in obscure (extinct?) Programming Languages, Telescript always struck me as interesting as it apparently followed the Agent Programming paradigm, but as no one is maintaining the language anymore, I guess its lost to time.
Oh, this reminds me of my favorite animated Christmas film that was funded by the NFB. Noel Noel[0]! I saw it as a kid, and only rediscovered it last year, and now it's a Christmas tradition in my house. The story is a delightful poke at the consumerist aspect of the holiday and the English narrator was Leslie Nielsen, which was always warm and nice to listen to.
Working on getting two virtual servers running (Windows Server 2022 and Ubuntu Server 22.04), so I can learn more about Server and System Administration. I've bugged the SysAdmins at my workplace to death with my questions, but now I get to dig deep and setup AD on Windows and Security/Hardening on Ubuntu. (Using VirtualBox to easily get snapshots, so I can rollback if I bork it up.)
I remember when I bought a sketchbook for myself after starting a new job, and I found just making a mess with it endlessly freeing. Instead of trying to make sure every idea I put in it was perfect, i just put was on my mind. Ideas for projects, ones that were possible (Text Editor in Python) and even some that were not (Phone that could fold twice over to become a tablet), and it was great! Just let yourself wander. Pablo Picasso had a great quote:
"When I paint my object is to show what I have found and not what I am looking for." [0]
[0]: Pablo Picasso. "Art as Individual Idea." Picasso, Fifty Years of His Art, by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946, pp. 270 -271.
Yeah, I've started calling it "The Big Red Book" due to its immense size and because "Big Red" is the name of the artwork by Alexander Calder on the cover.
Funny, I've taken to calling it the Brick Book for its brickwall cover.
Yes, I've also never heard it being given that nickname either at first. I found it at near-random when looking up "White Book" [0] on Wikipedia.